Anything but Normal

Not only was the ‘normalisation meeting’ pretty odd, the fallout afterwards has been anything but normal.

The two main newspapers in Nicaragua yesterday carried the scandal that the ‘representative’ of Nicaragua at the meeting did not have government authorisation to attend. As El Nuevo Diario reports, Miguel Marenco was officially on leave from his job at the Fisheries and Agriculture Department, but instead appeared in Tokyo representing his country and arguing in favour of whaling.

The group Club de Jóvenes Ambientalistas (rough translation: Club of Environmentalist Young People) obtained the above photograph of Marenco from the meeting in Tokyo and revealed his presence to the government, sparking the scandal.

And in Denmark, based on my reports from the meeting, Greenpeace issued a press release questioning whether the Danish representative, Ole Samsing, had really suggested excluding NGO’s and the media from IWC meetings. The media followed this up, and he repeated the comments, resulting in a media controversy. It is now also the subject of a parliamentary inquiry.

To their credit, the Danish delegates have traditionally opposed secret ballots at the IWC, despite their support for other pro-whaling initiatives. This reflects a national political culture, and is no surprise given that Denmark is the home of the Aarhus Convention. The Aarhus Convention is an international agreement signed by 40 (mostly European) countries which grants the public rights regarding access to information and public participation and access to justice in environmental matters.

The politics in the run up to the IWC in Anchorage in May will no doubt continue to be anything but normal!

Shane